The singer and actress Tina Turner has died this Wednesday at the age of 83 at her home in Küsnacht, near Zurich (Switzerland), after fighting a long illness, a family spokesperson said in a statement.
Tina Turner’s life has been very intense, full of success and recognition, but some moments were not easy. Two of her memoirs brought to light experiences that left her fans shocked. One of her most striking was that of her wedding night in Mexico.
She was already known as Tina Turner, but Anna Mae Bullock did not legally become Mrs. Ike Turner until on November 26, 1962, when the couple crossed the Mexican border to be married in Tijuana. However, Tina Turner’s marriage is summed up in pain and suffering.
It was in 1981, at the time when Tina Turner was trying to establish herself as a solo artist, when the singer revealed the truth of her abusive marriage to Ike Turner. Let’s remember that the artist separated from her in 1976 after experiencing a real hell of drugs and abuse.
“He once threw hot coffee in my face, causing third-degree burns. He used my nose like a punching bag so many times I could taste blood running down my throat when he sang. He broke my jaw. And he didn’t I could remember what it was like not to have a black eye,” Tina wrote in her 2018 memoir, My Love Story.
Notably, their marriage, and Ike’s control over her career and life, left Tina with post-traumatic stress disorder: “My relationship with Ike was doomed the day he realized I was going to be his source. income,” she wrote on My Love Story.
Tina Turner herself described her wedding, behind closed doors and without guests, as a “cheap ceremony and very different from what she had dreamed of”. In addition, in an interview for Mail On Sunday’s You magazine, the artist recalled her “embarrassing” wedding night: “Guess where we went… To a brothel on my wedding night!”
Once inside the brothel, she was so afraid of her violent new husband that she was forced to watch a live sex show just hours after they were married: “I was sad the whole time, about to cry, but there was no escape. We couldn’t leave until Ike was ready, and he was having a great time,” she said.
“I convinced myself that I was happy, and I was happy for a brief time, because the idea that I was married actually had meaning for me. For Ike, it was just another transaction.” The American blues musician died in 2007 in California from a cocaine overdose and the problems generated by the great addiction he suffered.
